At the Heart of Things

What a lot we’re hearing about security and whistle-blowers. Funny how ordinary folk who decide to break the silence surrounding wrong-dong in government departments are called traitors, and hunted if they flee the country for fear of being imprisoned for espionage or treason, yet we have officials dealing with foreign office business, claiming that it’s justifiable for governments to share secret data about private individuals; to hack into private computers of innocent people, and to allow the intelligence networks of UK and the USA to share their findings with impunity.

How the tune changes again when one of the boffins, labouring away and snooping into everyone’s private business on behalf of one of the intelligence merry-go-rounds decides to let some light on the scene. All hell breaks loose; resulting in the obvious fact that there is one law for ordinary people, and another very different one for those who work at GCHQ for MI5 or 6, or hand-in-glove with the CIA or any other official secret service hub. Of course there has always to be security, but not paranoia.

So very different is the response when officials are asked about the secrecy surrounding the enforced adoption of children, or the pursuit of justice and the prosecution of those who have committed crimes against them. It is easier to get blood from a stone than to get justice for someone who lacks powerful friends or the money to buy them. Our society is hag-ridden with well-trained officious clerks churning out platitudinous epistles called ‘In response to your…….’ – who are, in fact churning out rubbish replies for the signatures of slippery respondents, whether they be lawyers, barristers, judges, politicians, or Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, but who all have the same common denominator in our society – power and wealth.

Good then to be able to go out in the garden on one of our rare summer days filled with sunshine and wander with a camera to look into the hearts of flowers where the only eavesdroppers are the bees. Only a few it’s true, but they were making music with the birds. Sadly there were no flutterings of butterfly wings – yet. We live in hope.